


Fine

by stargatefan_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-26
Updated: 2004-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-06 21:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10344774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargatefan_archivist/pseuds/stargatefan_archivist
Summary: SPOILERS : Evolution part 2, New GroundSUMMARY : If you repeat a word often enough, it loses its meaning





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Yuma, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [Stargatefan.com](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Stargatefan.com). To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [StargateFan Archive Collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/StargateFan_Archive_Collection).

Stargate SG-1 Fanfiction - Fine

Run. Don't think. Run. Breathe. That was close. Don't look back. I can hear them. Run. Legs pumping, heart pounding, God I'm going to die and then everyone is going to die because these assholes are gonna keep that thing and Sam'll never get a chance to study it and Anubis will win and then everyone is gonna die but I'll be dead first. Don't think. Run. Keep running. Did they find Bill? Don't think so. Still three chasing me. Where's the Stargate? Where's the Stargate? Idiot. No Stargate. You're in Nicaragua, not P-whatever. Nowhere to run. Keep going. Get them away from Bill. Get away.

God! That hurts! Fire in my leg, like a staff weapon, but sharper. Stabbing, not burning, and I can't stand up any longer. I'm on the ground and my hand comes away bloody from the hole in my leg. No more running. The three remaining Contras or whatevers come crashing through the brush. Rafael throws down his gun and demands a machete. Can't run. Can't crawl. They'll mow me down. God.

"I'm gonna skin you alive!"

I don't doubt that. Look for a weapon, anything. Rock, big as two fists. Maybe I can brain him, knock him out, something, anything to fight back. Hands not tied, now. Burned skin pulls as I reach, but I don't feel anything but panic and the ache in my lungs and my leg. Get the rock, and then gunfire again. Stop it stop it stop it! God, I'm tired of being shot at.

But this time the three amigos fall, and there's a blurry figure in cammo, holding a P90, and Jack's voice asking "How many more?"

Jack? Can't be. Jack is miles away. Jack is back in Colorado Springs. Not here, like some kind of GI Joe avenging angel. I'm dead. That's it. I'm dead and hallucinating this. 

The hallucination comes closer, and I can see better. "Daniel?"

When I feel him nudge my arm, it clicks. Hallucinations don't nudge, usually, but the world stopped making sense days ago. Still, somehow, Jack's here. And he asked me a question. Right. Get it together. "That's all. You got them all." And then, because I have to know, "What are you doing here?"

The rock is still in my hand. Don't need that now. I throw it down and try to catch my breath. "Never mind. Just glad you're here. "Somehow, beyond all hope or reason, I'm rescued. Hadn't expected that, this time, despite my brave speech to Rafael that first day. The US Government doesn't usually do this sort of thing. I knew they wouldn't negotiate for me, and I was pretty sure they wouldn't authorize a rescue, but here was Jack, looking at me like he's not quite sure I'm sane. Fair enough. I'm not sure either. 

"You okay, Daniel?" he asks, and his eyes are worried, and a little sad, and a little angry, too. Probably at me, for putting him to all this trouble. Still, there's kindness in there, too, and that was welcome after the week I've had. 

"I'm fine, Jack," I say, and I really am. Or I will be. "Can I have some water?" The thirst that's been growing for the past three days is almost overwhelming, now that the adrenaline is wearing off. All I want is a few gallons of water inside me, a hot shower, and bed. Unfortunately, the bullet is still in my leg and I know Jack is going to drag me straight to the nearest hospital. 

Can't do that. Have to get back to the mountain. Can't take a chance that the device will hurt someone else.

He hands me the canteen, and I drink slowly. My stomach is so empty, I can practically hear the water splash as it hits, and it fills me up quickly. I want to drink more, but I'll puke if I do, and I really don't want to puke. I hate puking. Especially with my ribs feeling the way they do. First night, Rafael and his boys took turns using me for a soccer ball, to loosen up a little. My bruises have bruises. Don't think I'll tell Jack that, though. He's had lots worse. 

When I go to hand it back, he won't take it, and there's this look in his eyes that makes me uncomfortable. Like he knows that's the first water I've had in a while. I look away and take another drink, saving about half for Bill. He's worse off than me. "I'm fine," I say again, and I can see he's not buying it. 

"Right." He pulls out a bandanna and loops it around my leg. I brace myself for the flare of pain just before it comes, putting pressure on the wound and stopping the bleeding. "Sorry. Are you going to be able to walk on that?"

No. "Yeah."

He heard my thought, I guess, and is about to help me stand when Chalo shows up, remarkably lively for a man with bullets in his heart. "Tel'chak's device reanimates dead tissue," I explain quickly, and Jack pulls me to my feet and around the tree for cover.

"Yeah. Whatever." More bullets, tearing through the underbrush, tearing through the bark and raining splinters down on us both. Chalo isn't going down. Jack keeps firing, grimly, and then some guy yells to get down, and blows Chalo into red mist.

The quiet is deafening. I don't think the birds are ever coming back to this part of the jungle. I know I wouldn't. Won't.

"What's with the Evil Dead guy? "Jack pulls me up again, and this nut job is standing there, chewing gum and grinning. "Classified?" Who is this guy? I look at Jack and ask with my eyes, is he with you?

Unfortunately, it seems he is. 

Jack wants to call Air Rescue, but we have to go get the device and find Bill, so I start hopping. Jack helps, but pretty soon, I'm just going along with my eyes closed, following Jack's lead and wanting this to be over with. Shower. Morphine. Bed.

We find Bill, and I give him my canteen. He does drink too much, too fast, and ends up losing it in the bushes while the psycho, Burke, looks on and laughs. Asshole. Haven't you ever seen someone who hadn't been allowed food or water for three days? Jerk. 

"Easy," Jack murmured. Guess my dislike for the guy was leaking out a bit. "We're so out of here. You holdin' up okay, Daniel?"

"Fine," I say, and I guess it comes out a little terse, because Jack gives me another yeah, right look and pats my shoulder. "We have to go straight back to…" I pause, looking to Burke, and take a guess that his security clearance isn't quite that high, "…the general. No side trips." No stops at air base hospitals, Jack. I don't want anyone but Janet seeing the mess on my back and chest, and really, I don't even want her seeing it, but someone has to, and Janet can be trusted to lie to the rest of SG-1 about certain details. Sam doesn't need to know, nor does Jack. Teal'c would understand, I think, but I'd feel better if he didn't know either.

Besides, its not like this was the first time I've been tortured. Not even the second. These guys were amateurs, compared to the Bedrosians.

Maybe I need to change the line of work I'm in. I'm comparing torture experiences. Normal people don't do that. Do they? I'll have to ask Jack, but I know I won't. He'll tell me, and then I think I'll have to start screaming and I don't want to do that just now. It'll upset Bill. He's had a bad week, too, with much less prep for it than me.

"You need a doctor, Daniel," Jack objects. I knew he'd say that. "You've got a bullet in your leg."

Duh. "I know that, but the fewer people exposed to…the thing…the better. I want it in a lead vault by tonight. We can be in the Springs in seven hours. Less. I'll be fine." My words coming shorter, because I'm getting tired. I guess all that running around, getting shot at, getting shot, and seeing my life flash in front of my eyes before getting rescued out of the blue really took it out of me. Either that, or the adrenaline was wearing off. I'm feeling a little loopy.

"Daniel," he starts, but then we're at the camp and I just hold up my hand and point. Threat assess, Colonel. Go secure the area. I'm just going to lean against this tree for a bit while the world stops spinning. Bill stays with me, sipping from his canteen, not meeting my eyes. Poor guy. 

Jack goes off, poking into buildings and under things, reassuring himself that we were alone there. I don't think Rafael had been near the device long enough to come back and haunt us, but I keep listening for him, anyway. The trees rustle with the wind, and that's all. I could eat a horse. Raw. Or some of that pineapple. I could smell it on my lip, the whole time they were shocking me, until the smell of burning and ozone overpowered it. I think I can still taste it, a little. I lick my lip, but only taste copper, now. On second thought, I don't think I like pineapple anymore.

Burke goes into the hut with the device before I can warn him, but he's out again pretty quick. He looks over to us, then back inside, and he's not laughing now. Great. He saw the blood and the chair and the goddamned batteries. At least Jack didn't. Don't want him to.

"Hand me that stick, Bill."

He does, and it makes a dandy crutch. I hop as quick as I can between Jack and the hut. I can hear that thing humming from here, and feel the faintest wisps of power pulling at me. It reminds me of the sarcophagus, of how that felt when Shyla first turned it on, and I want to get away from there, want to run, but I can't. Not yet. 

It helps to realize that I don't *want* to get closer to it. I beat that addiction, thank you Janet and Jack and Sam and Teal'c and all the long-suffering nurses at the SGC who had to put up with me at my worst. All I want to do is get away.

Burke does more poking, then walks up to Jack, who's been poking around the shed where they kept us. "The perimeter's clear. I just heard from Air Rescue. They got the guide."

"Rogelio?" He's still alive? How…it's been three days. I thought the guy was dead for sure. What a relief. Gotta remember to give him a big tip.

"Yeah. He's gonna be okay. They'll be here, soon." More great news, but we had something to do first. 

Jack and Burke start talking. Perfect opportunity to make sure Jack never has to see the inside of that damned hut. It would bring up too many bad memories for him, and that's the last thing I want. Bill goes with me, even though he doesn't have to, and I'm more and more impressed with him. I mean, yeah, he talked, but he's just a scientist. He's never had to stand up to torture before. 

I'm just a scientist.

Well, no. Not any more. I've been through too much to say that, now. I wonder what I am, then, but before I can go too far down that road, we're inside the hut.

Neither of us looks at the chair, nor the jumper cables. The box. Look at the box. Just the box. God, it smells in here. Puke, and the lingering smell of excrement from when Chalo got shot, and blood, and sweat, and over-ripe pineapple. I want to throw up, but I just swallow and focus on the box.

"There's your symbols, Bill." Bill laughs a little and studies the thing from a distance.

It's pretty straightforward, if you can read Ancient, which I can, now, for some reason. It was easy enough to turn on, apparently, because Rafael had figured it out on his own, or maybe he'd just gotten lucky. At any rate, I take a closer look, read the glyphs, and press a couple of glowing squares.

They stop glowing. I want to turn it back on. "Bill, can you take this outside?" I don't want to touch the thing again. Not ever. It feels too good. Like fingers of sunlight on all the hurt places, like the hand of a lover, like the sweetest strawberries you've ever eaten or the purest water you've ever drunk. Like it will give you your heart's desire, and all you have to do is push here, and here, and here…. "Bill?" He gives me an odd look and I realize how strained my voice has become. I try on a reassuring smile, but he's not buying it. 

Bill steps up and takes the thing, and we go back outside, and I keep my distance. 

"Is that the thing, that made that guy do that thing?" Burke wants to know. 

I nod, "Yeah, its okay, its off now." Jack must have told him something, but he gives me a little look, like maybe I said too much. Too late now.

"Good. That's good," Jack says, nodding. Maybe I'm off the hook. I'm too tired to care.

Then Bill has to temporize. He's too careful with his research, too. All of his facts are triple-checked and cross-referenced. Makes for dry reports, but he's always very accurate. "At least, we think it's off. It's not glowing anymore, so…"

I hasten to reassure Jack, who's looking a little nervous, now. "The glowing thing really gives it away, so if it's not glowing anymore, it shouldn't be on anymore." I'm babbling. I'm tired. I want to go home.

"Do you want to hold it?" Bill asks. 

Yes. "No!" I move away a little, before I can reach out and turn the thing on again. 

Burke just grins like a manic. "'s crazy!"

I can't disagree.

Jack starts disagreeing with me, though, the minute Air Rescue appears on the horizon. "Damn it, Daniel, you need a doctor. You're gonna end up losing that leg."

We've moved a little away from Burke and Bill, so we can speak more freely. "You saw what that thing did, Jack. We need to get it to the SGC. I'm not bleeding, and I'm not that badly hurt. Janet can fix me up when we get home. I won't even gripe about staying in the infirmary for her lovely antibiotic cocktails. Just get us there, Jack. I mean it. "I feel the urgent need to get underground. The SGC has become home, more so since I left Oma and Co, and I feel it calling me the way I used to feel Abydos. 

Jack just looks at me, then nods. "Okay, Daniel." He looks like he wants to say something else, but he just nods again and then the Air Rescue helicopter lands and we're flying away from that little slice of hell in the jungle. Too easy, but I'm too tired to insist on further argument, seeing as how I've won. 

Quick transfer to an AF personnel carrier out of Tegucigalpa and some flutternutter with our visas and we're in the air again. I manage a quick and private spit bath, and make sure Bill does too. Jack brought us clean fatigues. We both feel worlds better, after that, and I manage to sleep until we land at Peterson. Okay, I manage to nap in spurts. I keep dreaming I'm running from Rafael, only now he's a zombie and he won't die and he manages to catch me and skin me and then ties me to a chair with those damned plastic cuffs until the device heals me and then he starts over again and he just keeps laughing….

I don't get a lot of sleep on the way back, truth be told. I think I'm running a fever. That would explain the dreams. Jack keeps waking me up, and looking worried at me, and giving me Tylenol and water and crackers and power bars and chocolate until I'm not hungry anymore. Bill manages to sleep. So do I, eventually.

It's night by the time we reach the mountain. That cavernous entryway has never looked so inviting, nor the elevator ride taken so long. Jack called ahead and Janet meets us at the first elevator change, on level fourteen. She looks relieved and mad and determined, just like she always does when we come home damaged. "Welcome back, Daniel. I have it on good authority that you're mine until I decide to release you, and gripe-free, which my nurses were all very glad to hear."

I glower at Jack. "Narc."

"Sue me. Get in the wheelchair, Daniel." He pats the vinyl and I sit, relinquishing my crutches to Bill, who's flagging badly himself, and suffer to be wheeled to the infirmary. 

"I can't believe you told Janet," I mutter darkly as we descend. "I wasn't myself when I said that. I was…"

"Exhausted, dehydrated, starving, hurting, coming down from an adrenaline high after being chased for a couple of miles by a psycho with a machete and a head full of Goa'uld badness, and running a fever from the bullet in your leg you wouldn't let me get taken care of seven hours ago? " Jack mutters right back. 

Janet looks grim, but I can't let that go. "That's not fair, Jack. It hadn't been seven hours, then, and I wasn't running a fever."

"So you meant what you said."

"Yes! No! About what?" I'm getting confused, now. It's hard to keep track of an argument with Jack 'We-don't-need-no-steenkin'-logic' O'Neill. Ok, usually it's not that hard, but for some reason I'm not thinking too clearly right now.

"About not griping at my staff, Dr. Jackson," Janet says behind me. 

"Oh. That. Okay, then. I did mean it." So there. I think I won the argument, but I'm not sure. Doesn't matter.

At least the device is here, and in a handy little lead box we picked up in Tegucigalpa, at the embassy. Why they had a lead box at the American embassy, I never did find out, but it made me feel better once the device was inside. The fact that it was under lock and key and on its way to Sam's lab where it would be put under further locks and keys, none of which I would have, made me feel even better. Because I still want it. Have to make sure Sam was with me, while I was studying it, and vice versa. Make sure no one is ever alone with it. Not even the Tok'ra. Especially not the Tok'ra. Turn 'em into Goa'ulds faster than you could say Ra. 

We leave Jack at the door, and then I have to get naked for Janet, which is always fun. The t-shirt stuck to some of my deeper burns, and when I finally get it off, Janet is standing by with a gown, and her eyes are sad behind that air of clinical detachment she tries to maintain, but can't always. "I'm fine, Janet," I tell her. "It looks much worse than it feels."

"Well it looks terrible. What the hell did they do to you, Daniel?" She hands me the gown and I cover up quickly, not meeting her eyes as I tell her softly, the medically important stuff anyway. She doesn't need all the details. The curtains are closed, thank goodness, and the nurses are busy with Bill, a few beds away. Janet is doing her own exam, as I asked her to when we first got here, and she'll keep the results secret from everyone but General Hammond, who Knows All. Bad enough they know. Janet's eyes are getting a little haunted by the time we're done.

She gives me a shot of Morphine in my brand new IV, and then starts debriding. I hate debriding. It hurts almost more than the original burns, or would if not for the lovely blanket of opiates that is stealing up over me. "Some of these bruises are deep. I think you have a cracked rib or two, and then there's your leg. You're going to need surgery, I'm afraid, and then a few days of antibiotics until we get this infection under control."

"Yeah. I know." I lay on my side and let her work and stare at the curtain. Sam's not back yet, and no one's heard from them. They're overdue and when they tell me what the mission was, I hate myself for getting kidnapped. Jack and I should have been with her and Teal'c, not playing shock the monkey and tag with a bunch of terrorists, damn it. 

The morphine is lulling, dulling the pain, and I'm almost asleep when Jack comes in again. Janet finished up a while ago, and they're getting the OR ready. I'm prepped and scrubbed squeaky clean and a little loopy from the pre-op sedation and lack of sleep when I open my eyes from a long blink and there he is, also looking scrubbed and more rested than he has a right to. 

"Hey," he says. 

"Hey," I reply. "How's Bill?"

"Fine. Janet released him about an hour ago. He's debriefing with the General right now. I sat in on some of it." Damn. Damn damn damn. "You wanna talk about it?"

"No." Never. Not in a million years. "I'm fine."

Jack makes a face and slaps the bed beside me, which makes me jump, despite the Versed Janet primed me with. "I'm so sick of hearing that, Danny! You're not fine." He's keeping his voice down, somehow, but he's pissed. "You won't be fine for a while, so stop saying you are."

I blink. "Why are you so angry?" I can't understand, and trying to is waking me up and pushing back the pain-free fog. I can feel my leg throbbing and my back and my chest hurts and I wish he'd go away, but he won't. 

"I'm not angry!"

I snort. "Yeah. And I'm gonna hop up out of this bed and do the cha-cha."

He thinks a minute, and then says, still keeping his voice down, "Ok. I'm angry."

I'm hoping for a rescue from Janet, because the last thing I need right now is a reaming from Colonel O'Neill, but the good doctor is nowhere in sight. Fine. He's mad at me. "Sorry, Jack. Didn't mean to worry you." Go away. Maybe if I close my eyes, he will.

Nope, he's still there. Breathing at me. I open my eyes and squint up at him and I really can't read his face. There's too much there to take in all at once. Anger, yes, but grief, too. Guilt, and pain, and empathy. Surely not all that. I blink, and his expression goes back to bluster and if anything, his yell gets even quieter. "Worry me? I swear to God, Daniel, I'm never letting you out of my sight again. You get yourself in too damn much trouble, and the only way I'm not gonna worry about your sorry ass is if I know where it is all the time."

And then I get it. He's not mad at me. He's mad for me. Nice. I'm touched. I'm also grinning stupidly and I think Jack takes it wrong. "What?" he asks, practically roaring a whisper at me. He doesn't know Janet is standing right behind him, hands on hips. He's so busted.

"Thanks for rescuing me, Jack," I say, or I think I do, because the Versed really starts kicking in at that point and I'm feeling nothing below the neck and it feels wonderful. 

He gets this weird look on his face, like he's gonna cry, but Jack never cries, so it must be the meds, and then Janet shoos him out and everything goes dark.

()()()

Its late the next day when we get the word that Sam's okay. Well, she's got a broken clavicle and Teal'c's got a nasty hole in his side, but they're mostly okay and they're coming home. I cajole a clean set of fatigues and a couple of crutches from Annie, my favorite nurse because she lets me get away with anything provided it won't hurt me, and make it to the Gateroom just in time for the wormhole to open. 

It's weird to see Bra'tac and Jacob coming through with Sam and Teal'c. Those spots belong to Jack and me, but the mission was accomplished and everyone is more or less okay. Sam looks awfully pale, though, and she moves like she's hurting. Her eyes flick over me with relief, but a bit of worry when they see the crutches. I give her a smile and she settles enough to give her report and her bad tidings to the general. 

Supersoldiers. That sounds bad. So do the click of Janet's heels as they come down the hall to fetch me back to my bed.

Jack invites Sam to lunch, and when we get out to the hall, he extends the invitation to me and Teal'c as well, but Janet has already got me in a wheelchair and tells Jack in no uncertain terms that I'm not going anywhere just now, and would Sam and Teal'c care to accompany her back to the infirmary as well? 

So lunch is brought to us, set up on bedside tables, and we dig in after Janet assures herself that Master Bra'tac has done his usual excellent job of patching her people up in the field. Sam has to have x-rays of course, and Teal'c objects stoically to having his bandage dislodged, but it's a half-hearted kind of objection. I think we're just all happy to be home and safe, for now. 

"Well, the medical downtime will give me a chance to study the device you brought back, Daniel," says Sam, tucking in to her chicken spaghetti thing. I don't see how she eats that slop. Then again, I like the meatloaf, so go fig.

Jack's brought me two servings, and a mound of potatoes, along with three slices of apple pie and wedges of cheddar to go with. I made Janet snarf when he brought the trays in by declaring, "Jack, if I wasn't straight, I'd kiss you. "Then I had to explain to Teal'c, which took most of one serving of meatloaf and half of the potatoes to get through and left him almost as bewildered as he was before I started. 

"I have kissed Master Bra'tac many times, and yet I am very attracted to women," he says, and this time Sam snarfs. "I do not think I will ever truly understand this world, no matter how long I live here." He hands Sam a napkin and I swear he winks at her, but the meds are cutting in again and I'm nearly bursting with meatloafy goodness, so my eyes could have been playing tricks on me. 

"Why'd you kiss…" Jack starts, then holds up his hand and shakes his head. "Never mind. I don't want to know. It's a Jaffa thing; I wouldn't understand."

Teal'c opens his mouth to speak, then settles for nodding. "Indeed. You would not."

So good to be home. Jack looks over at me and I know I'm looking like a goof with this smile, but he doesn't say anything. He just nods and says, "That pie's fresh, Daniel. You gonna eat all that?" and steals a slice of cheese.

Oh, yeah. Good to be home.

**The End**

  


* * *

  


> Thank you to JoMadge and Jeanne for the betas. Dang it, I wanted some comfort with my hurt. Since the Stargate writers didn't deem fit to write it. . . 

* * *

> January 12, 2004 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.   
> 

* * *

  



End file.
